


Careful, Kid, They'll Break Your Heart

by cashewdani



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Break Up, F/M, Falling In Love, Football | Soccer, Happy Ending, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-01
Updated: 2015-03-01
Packaged: 2018-03-15 20:19:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3460646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cashewdani/pseuds/cashewdani
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Alright, Mr. Tommo, I'm just going to say it.  You love the Rovers, but have they ever loved you back?”</i>
</p><p> </p><p>Or the Elounor <i>Fever Pitch</i> AU that no one asked for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Careful, Kid, They'll Break Your Heart

**Author's Note:**

> I think this fic came out of trying to brainstorm het AUs I could sign up to write for the big bang? And talking about this one specifically on a long drive home from miss_bennie's with irishmizzy. So, I know I said I wasn't going to write you birthday fic, but consider these your gifts.
> 
> (And also, I know there's a UK version of _Fever Pitch_ with Colin Firth that is available on Netflix and probably would have given me some of the football details I'd need to make this more plausible but I also know I didn't watch it. Not beta'ed, not brit-picked, researched purely on Wikipedia. My apologies and thanks.)

“You’re sure you don’t want to eat outside? It’s lovely,” Harry implores, gesturing at the window.

Eleanor reminds him, “We’re meant to be working.”

“Yeah, but we’re always meant to be working,” he says around a mouthful of banana. “Why do so many of these kids want to go to university anyway?”

“So they can have great jobs like this and have to work at their desks instead of taking lunch.”

Harry sighs, shuffling the prospective student files. “Are you sure we can’t pop out? Just for a minute, even? Get a little bit of sun?”

“Grimmy warned me about your tan bet,” she says, not looking up from where she’s inputting student contact information into their massive spreadsheet.

“Just because he’s out of work by noon every day, he thinks he’s going to beat me!”

“Such struggles, Styles.” Eleanor nudges her very organized cup of highlighters towards him even though he’s going to ruin them. “At least make it look like you’re doing some admin.”

“Fine,” he mutters, tossing his peel and then pulling out one of her green pens. They work in about thirty seconds of silence until he says, “Thought you’d want a little break though before that special session group you set up comes in later, is all.”

She rubs at her eyes, exasperatedly, because she’d forgotten that was today and looking at thousands of lines of data will start to make everything seem a bit wibbly after a while. “I will pay for your spray tan if you let me get even a little bit of anything done, Harry.” 

He smiles his pleased with himself grin, and she has to stop letting him badger her into things. “Really kind of you, El, cheers.”

“Don’t tell your boyfriend I had anything to do with it though. Or Alexa.”

“Or Aimee,” he adds, and yes, that’s probably a good idea too.

\---

“Coach Tommo, your choice of music’s shit,” Michael says, and the other boys giggle like this is a hilarious comment and the first time he’s said it.

“I told you, when you’re well off enough to get a car, you can get to pick what music you play for the delinquent children you’re forced to spend your afternoons with.”

Ashton goes to pull his ear from the backseat and it’s truly a testament to how long Louis’ been doing this job that he’s able to angle his head away without swerving them out of their lane. “You really call this a car, sir?”

“I’m leaving you lot there whether this counselor says she’ll accept you or not,” he assures them, only more confident in his decision as Callum and Luke see who can twist one another’s nipples the hardest.

“I like it better when you take us to the Rovers games,” Michael says, and yeah, Louis does too.

\---

Eleanor’s gotten through only one and a half of the folders on her desk when there’s a knock on the wall of her cubicle. “Hi, sorry,” a guy with kind of messy hair and four teenagers behind him says. “They said you were Eleanor? I’m Louis Tomlinson, we spoke on the phone.”

“Right, yes, I am. I am...she,” Eleanor answers, struggling out of her chair, and Harry was supposed to warn her when it was getting close to three. She wanted to have put together a few more information packets and looking up at him, she wishes she’d had time to find some lipstick. “Welcome to Waterdale. It’s a pleasure to have you.”

“See, sir, she said it’s a pleasure to have us,” the one with bright green hair says and she watches as he gets a slap to the back of his head.

“Hey, I told you. Be respectful,” Louis says, shooting the three others a warning look as well.

“Oh,” Eleanor takes a step back, bumping into her chair. “Are you allowed to hit them?”

Louis smiles at her, “Yeah. Actually you want to take a swipe at him?” He holds onto the boy’s shoulders, moving him between himself and where she’s standing.

“No. No, that’s...fine.”

“Alright then. Like I said when I called, I wanted to bring these lads in to get some experience on a university campus. Think they can really make something of themselves if they stop trying to prove me wrong at every turn.” It looks like the green haired one is about to say something else, but Louis squeezes into his arm and he swallows whatever it is. “So where do we start?”

“At the beginning,” Eleanor says, which is so utterly stupid, she can tell from the way that the boys try to suppress their snickering, but Louis just smiles at her, large and genuine.

“Smashing idea.”

\---

“She fancies you,” Callum informs everyone when they’re outside the elevators. “Definitely thinks you’re fit, Coach Tommo.”

“Stop trying to butter me up, you’re writing that paper when we get back no matter what tales you attempt to tell me.”

Ashton states, “No, I think he’s being serious, sir,” and Louis watches as all the boys nod.

Louis finds himself asking, “You really think so?” before he remembers he doesn’t care what a bunch of college students think about anything, specifically these four here with him about his love life.

“Don’t move from this spot. Don’t even talk to anyone. And I swear to Christ if you get into some sort of trouble in the five minutes I’m leaving you unattended, you are cleaning the boys toilets for the rest of the term. Do we understand one another?”

There’s nods and muttered agreements and that’s frankly as good as it’s going to get.

“Right here. Five minutes. Boys toilets,” he reiterates, making his way back towards the admissions offices.

\---

“You were really good with those kids today, El,” Harry tells her, cradling a phone call on hold between his ear and his shoulder.

“Yeah, you think so? I used to think about working with kids when I was younger.”

He says, “Regardless, you were even better with their teacher,” sticking his tongue out just a smidgen before turning his body back to his desk and saying into the receiver, “Yes, I was the person waiting to speak with the Headmaster. I’ll hold again, sure.”

And so maybe everyone’s favorite game is telling Eleanor she should have a boyfriend already because they love her and she’s amazing and they just want her to be as happy as they are. If it wasn’t for Daisy and Niall, she wouldn’t even know any other single people. Everyone else, all paired off like they're animals getting ready for the ark. But, it’s hard to date when you’re constantly at school fairs and watching over prospective freshman and barely have time for anything outside of work. 

The number of unread e-mails in her inbox now will not even fit on one page and it’s nice to daydream for a moment about being a Girl Guides Leader or teaching at a well respected private primary school instead of hoping someone above her gets sacked so she can have a promotion.

But then Eleanor notices one of those e-mails is from Human Resources and that there’s an opening coming up next year in recruitment and someone else will have to take girls on nature hikes she guesses. 

She can’t help but do a stupid little dance in her cheap office chair. There hasn’t been an opening in recruitment in ages, and it’s a step. A step towards much more prestigious positions and schools, maybe, even.

“Harry,” she hisses, because it’s kind of hard to tell if he’s still on hold or just listening to someone else speaking. He’d be tapping his pen against his thighs and his desk regardless. “Haz, did you see this e-mail? Maybe a year from now I could have my own flat!”

“How many people do you live with now,” a voice asks that isn’t Harry’s, and that teacher is standing next to her again.

She answers meekly. “One. Just the one,” before clearing her throat. “Did you forget something?”

“Yes, actually.” He looks down for just a moment, like he’s the one who should be feeling awkward, but when he glances up again, he’s smiling. “Forgot to ask if it might be alright for me to ring you up sometime. Take you out.”

“Oh,” Eleanor exclaims and she can hear Harry failing at suppressing his glee at the situation.

“Socially, of course. I wouldn’t be bringing the boys.”

It would be nice to go out with a guy who isn’t Nick or Harry on an actual grownup date. And she does like how cheeky his grin is and that he’s bothered to come back and ask.

“I don’t think now’s a good time,” is what she says though and she hates herself even as it’s happening.

\---

Louis angrily slams his beer down on the table. “I know why she won’t go out with me, she thinks I’m not in her class. Like she’d ever date someone without a degree. Or with tattoos. I saw her looking at my wrist.”

“If she doesn’t like your ink, mate, she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Your work is all sick,” Zayn assures him, reaching for the chips that Louis still hasn’t touched.

“I’m making a difference in the world. What’s she doing? Crushing kids’ dreams, that’s what.”

“What’s the big deal, Lou? Like she can’t be that fit.”

“It’s the principle of the thing!” he yells back.

\---

Nick immediately pushes past her into the flat. “If a fit boy asks you out, you go out with him, El, I don’t know how many times we have to go over this.”

“You told him,” she says to Harry, who follows in with their takeaway and hopefully the letterhead he swore he was picking up at the printers on his way.

“Of course I told him!”

“A fit boy asked her out today?” Sophia calls from the kitchen. “You said nothing happened at work!”

Eleanor yells back, “Because nothing did happen at work!”

Sophia walks into the room, carrying a tower of plates and cutlery. “Harry, confirm or deny.”

“Nothing happened at work today only because Eleanor thinks she’s too good for him.”

She does not want to deal with three identical looks of pity, so she focuses heavily instead on petting Pepper. “I did not say that I was too good for him.”

“You were thinking it though. You had the same look on your face as when that lad came up to us at the pub and asked you to dance.”

“He was wearing overalls, Harry.”

“Was this one wearing overalls?” Nick asks, settling into the corner of the sofa he always chooses in their flat. “Because if he was, Young Harold got me wound up for nothing.”

“No,” Eleanor admits, and tries to suppress the smile that wants to sneak out when she thinks about the thin, black jumper he was wearing. “He was dressed appropriately.”

Harry nods in response, taking the meals out of the bags one by one. “And he was funny, and works with these troubled kids, trying to get them to turn their lives around.”

“Oh, he sounds terrible,” Nick teases. “Eleanor, I don’t know how you even endured the scheduled tour with him.”

“Are we honestly going to spend the whole meal talking about this?”

“We’re going to have to talk about this until it makes sense to the rest of us,” Sophia says.

“I don’t know how to make this make any more sense. He asked, I said no thank you.”

“But why,” Harry drags out the word, just like he’s done the other twenty or so times he’s asked since the coach had left her cubicle the second time.

“I’m busy with work and that promotion opportunity was just announced, and I have my summer holidays planned already...”

Nick interrupts her. “Excuses. All of them. And not even good ones.”

“You did tell me the other night that you’re worried that instead of becoming more open and more available, you’re becoming less open and less available,” Sophia adds, and Eleanor had told her that in the confidence you find at the bottom of a wine bottle. “This might be a good thing to try.”

“Yeah, maybe you should date a different kind of guy,” Harry says. “Because, there’s nothing wrong with dating someone who isn’t using his CV as his best asset and frankly, the guys you’ve brought around are boring, high-maintenance poodles.”

“That’s not fair,” Eleanor says, even though that is exactly why she never went out again with the last three guys she had gone for dinner with.

“Alright, yes or no, El, my love, did you think he was fit?” Nick asks and before she can even answer, they’re all pointing and exclaiming. “Your face is the color of a breakfast tomato, we all already know.”

Harry says, “She liked his tattoos, didn’t you? Knew I’ve been rubbing off on her.”

“You’re all terrible, I don’t even know why we’re mates,” she exclaims while angrily scooping rice onto her plate.

“Oh, you know exactly why we’re mates,” Nick assures. “We make your life much more interesting. In a related note, you have to decide if you’re calling him now or after dinner.”

“Wait until Liam gets here!” Sophia suggests. “He is not going to want to miss this.”

“Maybe I’ll just start dating this guy to get away from you lot.”

“Good enough for me!” Nick says, like he wasn’t the most renowned bachelor their town had ever seen before Harry came on the scene from Cheshire. 

\---

“Hi, hope it’s okay that I texted. I had your number from your email. My friends helped me come to my senses and I’d love to go out some time if the offer’s still good,” Louis reads out loud, “And then two kisses to close it.”

“You should text back, ‘Who’s this?’” Zayn suggests.

“No, I like her. I want to go out with her.”

“Five minutes ago you were furious at her.”

That might have been true but right now Louis can’t stop grinning. “Yeah, but now I’ve got a date.”

 _Tell your friends a massive thank you from me. How’s tomorrow night at 7? Send me your address if that’s good xx_ he texts back.

\---

“Well even if you don’t like him, I do,” Nick says after she passes her phone around the living room. “But maybe ask him for a selfie so I can judge appropriately.”

\---

Louis’ quiffed his hair up the way Perrie assures him looks best and put on the shirt he last wore to church at Christmas. He picks her up a bouquet at an actual florists and not Tesco, and endured Zayn’s long spiel about how he can’t try to claim Hugo Boss as his to get a few spritzes out of the conversation.

He checks his reflection in his phone’s camera one last time before knocking on her door.

And there’s immediately an out of this world moan from inside the flat. “Uhhhhh, who is it?”

“It’s Louis, I’m here to take Eleanor out,” because maybe her flatmate is some kind of demon.

But it’s Eleanor’s face that shows up when she opens the door, looking ashen and damp. “I’m poorly, come back tomorrow, I’ll call you,” she mutters out, before going to close it again in his face.

He reaches out the arm that’s not holding the flowers to stop her from succeeding. “Wait, are you ill? Are you in pain?”

“I ate at this new place for lunch,” she starts although then she’s immediately slamming her hand over her mouth and sprinting into the flat.

Louis tries to make it a joke, asking, “Are you faking, because we don’t have to do this,” but then he can hear her retching.

“Pepper, get away from that. Oh my God, Pepper, stop eating it!”

“Okay, I’m coming in,” he says, because he can’t just walk away and go home when she sounds so miserable. “Are you alone right now?”

“Yeah,” she answers, and he can see her laying her head on the toilet as he steps around her pile of sick. “Sophia is staying at her boyfriend’s tonight. I’m so sorry. This is massively embarrassing.”

“People get ill,” he says, right as she does just that into the bowl. “Oh, you poor thing.”

“Go, please. You don’t have to stay.”

“I’m going to stay, just a little while, if that’s okay,” he assures her, putting the flowers down in the sink and looking for something in the bathroom he can use to pull her hair back.

\---

He sat with her on the bathroom floor for a long time, rubbing her back and getting her sips of water and it’s mortifying. The only person who has ever seen her this poorly before is her own mum.

“Why don’t we get you into something a little more comfortable,” he says, nice and quiet in a way that doesn’t make her head pound any more than it’s already pounding once she’s gone for awhile without sicking up.

“That’s a line,” she groans, even though she’s still wearing what she went to work in today and it would be really nice to get it off.

“Well, under any other circumstance, yes, but, honestly, let’s.” He puts his hands under each of her elbows and carefully eases her up off the tile floor. “There you go. I got you,”

And he does. He walks slowly behind her, holding her up, until he carefully eases her onto the edge of her bed.

“What drawer are your pyjamas in?” he whispers and she motions half heartedly towards her dresser with the mirror on top.

“The bottom one.”

When he opens it, of course the pair of _Babar_ shorts are on top. “Oh, I loved that programme,” is all he says though, moving them aside for one of the longer nightshirts she’s had leftover from uni. He walks back over again, helping her to her feet. “I’m going to help you change, alright? I won’t look.” 

She just nods because there’s a zipper and moving involved, and honestly if he was to let go of her right now, she might just crumple to the floor. He eases the zipper down her spine, and unhooks her bra, and she had thought about the possibility of this, but under very different circumstances. 

Once her dress is pooled around her ankles and he’s slipped the extremely boring nude bra off her shoulders, he smiles. “Okay, I looked,” and she’s surprised that she can even giggle right now. “Alright, arms up,” he requests, easily slipping the t-shirt over her head. “Now, you lay down, and don’t worry, you’re going to be okay. There’s nothing left to sick up, I promise.”

The pillowcase feels cool on her cheek and he brushes the hair back off her forehead and she closes her eyes and falls asleep.

\---

Louis goes to get his keys and leave once she’s in bed, but he can’t stop thinking about how if Eleanor was one of his sisters, he’d like for someone to stay with them until they were really and truly alright.

So he goes and cleans up her front hallway and the bathroom, puts out new water for Pepper and then goes through her cabinets looking for tea.

While he’s waiting for the water to boil, he texts Zayn. _Can you bring the DVD I’ve got in the player in my room over? Sending the address. THANKS MATE_

_You go on the weirdest dates. See ya in a bit._

Louis looks at the pictures Eleanor and her roommate have up on the fridge until the kettle whistles, and it looks like she has fun. Has some good mates.

He steeps a bag of ginger tea in a big, bright yellow mug, and brings it as silently to the bedroom as he can with Pepper circling at his feet.

She opens her eyes and blinks at him slowly in the half light of the bedroom. “Hi,” she whispers out, voice wrecked.

“I brought tea. Drink some if you think you can. Or later. There’s no rush.”

“Thank you, Luke,” she says and he chuckles as she closes her eyes again.

“Louis,” he corrects her, leaving the tea cooling on the nightstand.

\---

She wakes up the next morning and hasn’t vomited on herself in bed, or in the rubbish bin that is now apparently next to her. The bin that Louis put there, because that was actually real and happened it seems. The yellow mug on her dresser is another sign, along with the fact that her bathroom looks immaculate and not like the site of last night’s horror film.

She should text him her thanks, he definitely went above and beyond, but her phone is certainly dead wherever she last had it, and she needs to feel as clean as her toilet currently looks.

Eleanor runs the tap in the shower, waiting for the water to heat up, and then rinses off the disgusting film that feels like it’s all over her body. She washes her hair twice just to make sure there was no wayward sick still in it, and puts on the bathrobe she stole from that really nice hotel her parents put her and Sophia up in for her birthday.

She’s running a comb through her hair to get out the tangles until she notices someone is on her couch, and drops it out of fear. The noise wakes up Pepper, who leaps off Louis’ chest and runs over to her.

“Hey, you’re awake!” he blearily says, scrubbing a hand over his face. His stubble’s starting to come in and his hair has fallen flat, but she thinks he maybe looks better this way, a little disheveled. “You alright?”

“I’m not about to enter any pie eating contests, but, yeah, I’m alright.” She fidgets with the tie on the robe. “Did you clean up my bathroom or did I dream that?”

“Nope, not me. Must have been the vomit elves.”

She nods. “Thank you for that. And for everything. You really didn’t have to do any of it. Or stay! I can’t believe you spent the night.”

“Nah, it was fine. My mate, Zayn, brought over some films in case you woke up.” He holds up a plastic bag. “Well, I knew you’d wake up, but you know, in the middle of the night.”

“What’d you have him bring?”

He grins. “Mostly weird pornography and just something I like to watch when I’m poorly.”

“For me it’s _Mean Girls_ ,” she says, because she can fall asleep at any moment during it and not feel like she’s missing anything.

He asks, “What did you say?!” all excitement and jumping off the sofa.

“ _Mean Girls_?” Eleanor repeats it hesitantly, not exactly sure where this is going.

Shaking his head like he can’t believe what he’s hearing, he says, “This is...wow,” and reaches into the bag. “Grease.”

Eleanor can’t help but laugh, and loosen her grip on her robe, just a little.

\---

“You promise me your stomach feels alright,” he says into his mobile, walking home from work with the coat he needed to wear this morning slung over his other arm.

“I feel fine,” and something in her tone makes him picture her saying it while she’s smiling.

“You’re sure now? Because I can stop to pick up some _Flash_ on my way. A nice big bottle. Give your toilet a proper cleaning."

Eleanor tells him he’s, “So fresh,” but there’s still that definitive sense that it’s coming out from a positive curve of her mouth.

He wears a different shirt, and doesn’t put as much product in his hair, and buys her a tin of mints instead of the flowers this time.

\---

“So you’ve got to tell me how your mates convinced you to go out with me,” Louis says, while they're strolling through the park by her house that she’s always thought about spending more time in but that she only takes the dog to wee in every now and again. "Because I really never thought I'd hear from you again."

He told her over dinner about his grandfather taking him to Rovers games after his dad left, and picking his sisters up at school and practicing the piano every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon when he was small and she can't believe she willingly was going to just miss this opportunity. 

“They said all of my excuses weren't good enough," she tells him and he laughs. 

"Like what?"

"That I was too busy at work, mostly."

"Well you're good at it. You're one of the few people the boys haven't just openly mocked." 

She feels herself blush. "Thanks."

"Just being honest," Louis smiles and gives her a glance. He's walking next to her with his hands in his pockets and the sun is starting to set and she's thinking about kissing him. "I don't know if I'd let you ever pick a restaurant, but you can definitely organize a tour."

Eleanor lets him bump her with his shoulder, smirk and make her like him a little bit more.

"Am I ever going to be allowed to forget I got food poisoning one time in my life?"

"Nope, probably not. All my friends only know you as Sickie. You've got no choice but to never live it down."

She tilts her face away, partially because she's still blushing and partially to see if it will make Louis jostle against her again. The grin spreads on her face when he does. 

"How's Sickie, they ask me. You going out with Sickie tonight? What does Sickie..." He doesn't get to finish the sentence because she turns to kiss him, mostly on the mouth and just a little on his cheek. 

He put his hands onto her face. Changes the angle. Makes it perfect. 

\---

"So she invited you round to her mate's place, yeah?" Zayn asks while Perrie brushes through his hair with what Louis though was one of the dog's brushes. "Good sign, I think."

Louis hasn't really been keeping track of signs because he's just enjoyed getting to know Eleanor. Bringing her lunch if he can get away and talking about _The One Show_ in the evenings over tea. Sending the kinds of texts back and forth all day where you just really need the other person to know that crisps are on sale at Tescos and there was an annoying bird outside and underneath all that, how everything at the moment is making you think of them. 

"Yeah, should be a good night."

Perrie talks around a barrette in her mouth before slipping it behind Zayn's left ear. "When are we going to get to meet her?"

"Let him get through tonight first, babe."

"Yeah, her friends might slag you off so much you'll never hear from her again. Remember how much Jesy hated you in the beginning?" Perrie asks, plaiting what looks like the fifth braid onto her boyfriend's head.

"Jesy still hates him!" Louis says, flicking a bobble across the table. 

Zayn starts to turn his head to comment, but Perrie tugs on the section she's currently working on. "But I love him, so it's fine."

"Aw, babe," Zayn comments, and apparently it's fine for Perrie to interrupt this makeover to start snogging him. 

"Maybe this is why I haven't brought her round," Louis says while walking out the kitchen. He pulls out his mobile to fire a text off to Eleanor. _My flat mate and his girl are in a bit of a strop I'm going to a do with your mates first_

 _Their fault for not doing one_ she sends in reply. 

Perrie has apparently come up for air because Zayn yells from the other room, "Tommo! Do you like her more than the Rovers?"

"Fuck off!" Louis answers back as they both laugh. 

\---

"I want to apologize in advance for anything that might happen tonight," Eleanor says in the car. "Because I really will be sorry."

"Don't worry. I like Harry, I'm sure I'll like everyone else."

She sighs. "They can just be a lot? I love them, dearly even, but..." Eleanor trails off, wringing her hands until Louis reaches over with his left to hold onto her. 

"Hey, we're going to a party. With your friends. And we are going to have a massively good time," he assures her, but all she can do is take a breath and nod half-heartedly. 

Nick and Harry always throw amazing parties and roasts and events for all sorts of reasons. They're usually her favorite thing to put on the calendar, but she knows how cliquey her friends can get and how the drinks the boys provide usually make everyone a little more honest than they maybe should be. 

Eleanor feels Louis' lips graze her knuckles and gets out of her thoughts enough to look at him. "They wanted me to go out with you," he reminds her.

She clarifies, "I want to go out with you," because that is the most important piece here. 

"Oh, don't care any more about my job?" he teases, and she's going to kill Harry for talking to him while she was in the loo at work that one time. "My tattoos?"

"I think you know based on what happened last night how I feel about your tattoos," she says, as he finds a spot to park. 

"So I shouldn't cover these up before we go in then?" He gestures at his forearm. "Or yes, because as I think you said, 'Fuck, Lou, I've been staring at the rope on your wrist the whole time you've been playing that stupid game and if you don't do something about it, I'm not entirely sure what's going to happen next'?"

"Maybe I don't want to date you after all," she says, climbing out of the car. "Maybe I find you to be the most annoying person ever."

He takes her hand, and it's warm and already feels familiar. "No, we both know that's Harry."

"Don't let it get back to him that you said that."

"I trust you to keep my confidence," Louis says. "Now, let's do this again. Ian is engaged to Aimee but he also works with Nick?"

"Yes."

"And so does Daisy," he says with a definitive nod even though he's wrong. 

"No, Daisy just lives in the neighborhood. Nick's been friends with her for years."

"Oh, she makes the good desserts, okay, so who's the girl that works with Nick and Ian then?"

Because Louis had made her sit and go through the pictures on her Facebook with him the other night so he could try to get a handle on all of her friends before meeting them. That was something he'd wanted to do. Have a quiz show about her mates. "That's Fiona. I don't think she's coming tonight."

"Is it because she doesn't think Harry likes her," he asks. 

"Shhh, we don't talk about that."

He stops and she stumbles a little as the pull on his arm goes taut. "You told me she talks about it all the time."

"Oh yeah, she does and it's hilarious but we probably shouldn't."

Asking, "Is there anything else I shouldn't bring up," she realizes he still has made no move to get closer to their destination.

So she reassures him. "It's going to be fine. Lovely even. They will adore you as much as I do."

"Well then I'm fucked," he says with a smile. 

"Come on, only four houses to go. Remember, someone told me we are going to have a massively good time." He gives in to her tug and follows. "And I think it's really great you wanted to come tonight. Thank you."

"I did tell Harry I wouldn't miss it."

Eleanor squeezes his hand and Louis squeezes back and then Nick is flinging open the door. "Oi! We said 8 on the invitation!"

She goes to kiss his cheek. "By invitation do you mean that group WhatsApp message where you said I want an excuse to wear something Hawaiian?"

"Precisely. And this must be your beau of the moment. I'm Grimmy, or Grim or Nick..."

"Or the insufferable one," Eleanor interjects. "And don't call him the beau of the moment, it sounds insulting."

"Louis," he says, reaching out the hand that isn't holding hers to shake Nick's. 

But Harry comes and slaps a can of lager into it before contact is made. "Why don't you come out back and meet the lads? The girls want to gossip about you in the bedroom."

"We literally just got here, Haz. Let us mingle a little bit. You really don't have to," she says turning towards him, but Louis admonishes her. 

"Are you implying I'm not laddy enough for it?"

Harry let's her know, "That really is rather rude, El."

"Just thought he might want to be introduced around first before you all embarrass yourselves. But go on, Lou, if you think you're ready for them."

"We're not so terrible," Harry assures him. "Plus we have more beer."

"I had assumed Eleanor might be the worst of you lot any way." 

She pinches at his hip. "Off with you then."

"Yes, Louis, off with you," Nick tells him with a dismissive wave but a smile. "Leave us to my favorite part of new relationships. Eleanor, I'll find Aims and you get Daisy. She was with Pix in the kitchen last I saw her."

"I'll come find you as soon as they set me free," she promises, rubbing at Louis' bicep. 

"We'll be fine, go," and he leans in to kiss her on the forehead. 

Eleanor immediately has to drag Nick away by his wrist for the chorus of sound effects he starts in the front room. 

\---

“Nialler, you promised!” Harry exclaims when they walk out into the garden and the blond sinks his throw into a cup of lager. “I was supposed to be your partner.”

“Couldn’t wait,” he says. “Plus doing fine on my own. Who’s your friend?”

“Louis,” he introduces himself. “I came with Eleanor.”

“So you’re the boyfriend,” the boy says, nailing another shot. “‘M Niall.”

Louis isn’t entirely sure if they’re calling one another by those terms yet, but it feels good to hear and doesn't make the hair on the back of his neck stand up in horror like it has with some other girls in his life. 

Sophia’s boyfriend, who Louis has seen in many pictures around the apartment, wipes at his mouth. “Hazza, he’s killing me. That was his fourth one.”

“Yeah, it was, so drink it, Liam! You two can play next round if you want, this will be over really quickly.” Niall bounces his last ball on the table.

“Are you any good?” Harry asks Louis, who shrugs in response. “Can’t believe you just told Eleanor you’re laddy enough.”

“I mean, I just have no idea, really. We spent much more of uni packing bowls than playing drinking games. If we were in America, I’d probably be incredible.”

Liam asks, “Why do you say that?”

“They do this before all their games right? In the carparks? I’d have been practicing every weekend since I was a kid.”

“Oh yeah, Ellie told me you were a Rovers fan,” Harry says.

“Season ticket holder.”

Liam asks, eyes wide. “Were you there when they beat the Owls?”

“Yep!” Louis tells him with a very broad grin. “Amazing game. Lost my voice from screaming.”

“Would have killed to see that!” Niall tells him.

“It was pretty incredible.”

“What about the Hayter goal?” Liam takes a sip from one of the cups Niall hasn’t yet dropped a ball into, like he really needs something to do with his hands or about his shockingly dry under the circumstances mouth.

“Was at Wembley, yeah. Maybe the sickest thing I’ve ever seen. Can’t believe I got to be there.”

Liam places the cup back into formation. “What do you think of Sophia? Do you find her attractive?”

“If Eleanor ever breaks up with you, I’ll kill her,” Niall adds.

“Told you they were lads,” is what Harry adds to the conversation, reaching over to tap Louis’ beer can with his own.

\---

“You do realize that it was rather rude to ask for this conference, Nicholas,” Eleanor says as he passes her something pink and bubbly in a glass. "To me and all your other guests."

“Yeah, well, what’s done is done and we only organized this do so you'd bring him. Plus, it was Daisy’s fault, anyway.”

“Grim!” She settles onto his bed, taking off one of her shoes to rub at her heel. “All I said was I wanted to know more about him.”

“Specifically,” Aimee punctuates by flicking her lighter. “Where has he been? Why is he still on the market?” She exhales mostly out the window and just a little bit into Eleanor’s face. “Because it’s very obvious you like him and we will not allow some unworthy creature break your heart.”

Daisy says, “Maybe he just hasn’t met the right person yet,” slipping her shoe back on and giving Eleanor this really meaningful look that makes her try not to smile.

“But by now he should be with the wrong person,” Nick says. “I mean look at him!”

The smile quickly fades. “You were the one encouraging me to go out with him in the first place! Now you’re doubting this? Why? Because I like him?”

“No. No, of course not. You like lots of good blokes. Me, for example.”

“So what’s the problem?” Eleanor slams back at least half of her drink.

“We just feel...” Daisy starts, already trying to sugar coat it, Eleanor can tell by the look in her eyes, but Aimee cuts her off.

“If he wasn’t in some way a piece of shit, someone would have fucked him into her mattress already.”

“So, am I a piece of shit because I haven’t been made a part of a guy’s mattress yet?”

“No, it’s different for women. Obviously, El, please,” Aimee says, ashing her cigarette. “We just want to know why it seems no one else has chained him to herself forever yet.”

Eleanor feels like she wants to stamp her feet this is absolutely so ridiculous. “I brought him here to meet you all and this is what happens? You sound insane, you all sound so absolutely mental.”

“Speaking of things that sound mental,” Nick starts, “You’ve heard about Teresa.”

“Yes, we’ve all heard about Teresa,” Eleanor answers, because they definitely have but Nick continues like it’s the first time any of them are hearing this story about her ex-boyfriend.

“So, Teresa was dating this guy, I think his name was Philip, why can I never remember that? But, anyway, yes, she went to his flat and when he was in the shower one morning before work, while she’s drinking her coffee, which, I don’t even think she can stomach coffee any more, but who can blame her after, she goes to the cupboard in his bedroom and you won’t believe what she found.” 

“She finds all of the hair and nail clippings from his entire life,” the three girls say, nearly in unison, followed a few beats behind by Nick like they hadn’t spoken at all.

“All of the hair and nail clipping from his entire life.” He shakes his head. “But, really, Eleanor, all I’m telling you, there’s a reason this Louis guy is still single. And we love you and that’s why we have to say this.”

“I might fuck him on your bed tonight,” she tells him, putting her drink down on top of his wardrobe. “Like maybe right now, so you all should relocate sooner rather than later, probably. Where did Harry say they were going? The garden?”

“We're still right even if you shag!” Nick has to yell after her because she's already left the room.

\---

It's getting too warm to have the duvet on the bed, but Louis likes snuggling underneath it with Eleanor, feeling cocooned and flushed and close. He's sweaty and a little fucked out and they should shower before they fall asleep, but he has to wash the sheets tomorrow anyway. Maybe he'll just keep stroking his fingers down her side. Watching her face.

"You're sure you didn't have a bad time tonight," she asks, pushing her face slightly into the pillow.

"I didn't." He hovers his hand over her hip before applying just a little more pressure with a squeeze. "Don't suppose you're ready to tell me what you talked about in the bedroom?" Not that it's necessarily his business and she doesn't have to say anything if she doesn't want to, but she was twitchy when she came out to the garden and most of the night. He kept catching her looking at him like he was a puzzle she was attempting to put together. 

"No, but...you'd tell me, right? If there was something to tell me?"

"What do you mean?" He questions.

"You've never cheated on someone, have you?"

Louis feels a defensive twinge but doesn't give into it. "Nope, never."

"Never?" she makes him clarify and he wonders for a second how any of his actions over the past few weeks could have given her that impression. 

"Well, I did kiss another girl when I was 14 and Catherine thought I was her boyfriend, but I don't think that counts."

She gives him a little smile but it doesn't fully reach her eyes. "And like you've never strangled a cat or breastfed from your mum when you were already in school or..."

"What are you going on about?" He exclaims with a laugh in his voice as she smothers her face against his shoulder. 

"It's stupid. So incredibly stupid, but...my friends think something has to be wrong with you because you're too good to be single."

"Well, I'm not single."

"What?!" She leans back and the expression on her face is so adorable that Louis wants to kiss her even though it would ruin him getting to look at it.

"You're my girlfriend, aren't you?"

She crinkles her forehead. "I'm your girlfriend?"

"I'd like you to be."

"I'd like that too," Eleanor tells him, with a nod and a smile. 

"But," he pokes at the curve of her stomach, "my girlfriend can't talk about my mum with me when I'm naked. Especially about her breasts."

"Noted," she says before kissing at his jaw.

"I really like you, Eleanor. I can't imagine doing something to hurt you."

"You know, I can't either," is the last thing she says before kissing him in earnest, rolling so her body is right on top of his, warmer than the duvet cover, but not than what he's been feeling for awhile now inside his chest whenever he thinks about her. 

\---

Sophia is singing Taylor Swift loudly in her bedroom, mangling “Love Story” in the most perfect way there is to sing along with any song you truly adore. Eleanor sways along, tearing off miniscule pieces of tape from the roll.

There’s already a pile next to her of the pictures that didn’t make the cut for this round of redecoration. They’ll find their way back into their album slots: Nick wearing her prom dress and Harry snogging Daisy under mistletoe and that one of Aimee and Ian holding hands under that tree in the park the day they told everyone they’d gotten engaged. And she still loves these moments, the family she’s built out of all these people who used to be strangers, but there’s Louis now.

And she needs the shot of them dancing that night Billy DJ’ed, and the one of him crossing his eyes in her passenger seat in the carpark at the pub, and the selfie she took of them on the spread out old duvet cover after a lunch of wine and biscuits and what was left of the cheese once it tumbled onto the grass.

She sappily touches the shape of his face as Taylor and Sophia belt out about how I love you, that’s all I really know.

\---

“I want Rotherham United," Stan says, maybe more loudly than he needs to.

Ollie slams his drink onto the coffee table. "You saw them last year!"

"Yeah, that's how I know what a good match it'll be and I don't want to miss it."

"Not fair, Lou. Tell him."

“All I know is if you want to see Rotherham, you've got to twerk for Rotherham," Louis says, smirking while he waves the tickets in the air and queues up a song on his phone. "Come on then. Seems almost like neither of you really want to go." Because they're just sitting there staring at one another as Nicki Minaj blares out of his speakers. "Maybe I'll just ask one of Eleanor's friends. Harry probably wouldn't even need any motivation to get a proper twerk going."

That is apparently offensive enough to get them both out of their chairs, but that's all. "How do you twerk?" Ollie asks.

"Do you really want us to wave our asses in your face?" Stan follows, looking pained, right when Eleanor walks into the flat.

"Hi, I knocked twice and it was open," she yells over the music. "Hope it's okay I'm here."

"Yeah, yeah," Louis jogs over and gives her a kiss. "You know Stan and that's Ollie. Is this shirt new? I like it." He rubs the fabric between his fingers and it's warm from her and the sun. 

"No, just borrowed it from Alexa. What's going on?"

He takes in his friends staring at one another's asses and doesn't blame her for asking in that kind of tone. Lowering the volume on the song, he tells them, "You better look up a twerk tutorial on YouTube for when I get back. I expect an award show level performance." Turning his attention back to Eleanor, he extends his hand. "I want to talk to you in the bedroom."

She interlocks their fingers and follows, but he can tell her attention is still on the other room. "Is this all about the Rovers?"

"Yeah, I told you the other day that I got my tickets and we'd have to figure out the schedule. Which..." he pauses, even though he didn't think he'd be nervous to do this. "Here, wait, I got you something."

Louis reaches for the bag on his pillow. One that he lucked out to find in just the right shade of red.

Eleanor moves aside the tissue paper and he knows as soon as her fingers hit the scarf because of the little gasp she lets out. Yes, it's cashmere and yes, he probably spent too much, but he'd just really wanted her to have it. "I know it's too hot to wear right now, but I thought, I don't know, in the fall." He feels sheepish, admitting out loud that he's already thought about them still being together then. "Do you want to put it on?"

"It's too much," she says, and he's not sure if she means the scarf or the insinuation.

"Come on, I already bought it."

She slips the scarf over her neck, delicately in the way she does most things. "It's lovely, Louis, really, but..."

"But nothing." He spins it around another turn, so one of the stripes just grazes her chin. "I have to be honest, this is getting me hot.”

She laughs and it starts out normal, the same laugh he's heard teasing her about wanting to go get snacks in her pyjamas or watching stupid animal videos online but something about the pitch changes near the end. Like there's something she's struggling to tell him too. 

"What's wrong, El?"

“I didn’t realize how big this Rovers thing was with you," she said. "I mean, I knew, but I didn't _know_."

He feels the anger coiling in his stomach and he doesn't expect to yell but the volume he uses is anything but quiet. “This is what happens, every time, I open up and...”

“Hey, hey," She puts her hand onto his flushed feeling cheek. "Don’t jump off a building. We’re just talking.”

"But, I told you. I told you!" Because he did, one of those nights in bed they should have been sleeping but he couldn't stop twisting her hair around his fingers or kissing up her thighs. When he wanted to tell her everything. 

Her breath damp against his neck, after she'd told him about Teresa and the bag of hair, he'd said, "Sometimes I like to still feel like I'm 11 years old. And, not in a creepy, weird way, but just that hopeful and excited kind of way. And it's nice to be a part of something that’s bigger than me, and that's what the Rovers are. It’s not just a game for me. It's my grandfather and the first place I felt like I belonged and being connected to all of these people who used to be strangers. It's a passion, and...it’s been a problem for me and women.” Because it had, and he doesn't want it to be for him and her. 

She'd made him look at her, and in this serious and determined tone of voice said, “I know those women. Pay attention to me, look at me, only care about me kind of women. I am not that kind of woman." He'd nodded at her like she needed the confirmation, even though he'd never seen her more confident. She'd smiled after. "And I think you're a romantic. You can love under the best and worst conditions.”

And he'd almost told her that night how they were the best conditions he'd ever had, but he'd been scared. Just like he was now.

“I really hit a nerve, didn’t I?” she asks him, with that slow stroke of her thumb over his face. 

He says, “Yeah,” on a breath, and he's got to stop being terrified sooner or later.

“Come here." Her grip shifts to the back of his neck and he goes with it, being embraced into her hug, his face nuzzled against the scarf. "I took on a new assignment at work today. So that's going to be more hours, more responsibility."

"But it'll look good for the promotion?" he mumbles into the fabric.

"Exactly. But also, if I'm doing that on top of what they already have me doing, and you're always at the games or the pub...I don't know. I don't want to see you less."

It doesn't seem so absurd to ask her what he's been considering since the package of tickets came in the post. “Eleanor, will you go to the first game of the season with me?”

"You want to share the Rovers with me?"

"Everything. I want to share everything with you."

When she kisses him, it’s not scary. It makes him feel like she’s never going to leave.

\---

“What should I wear to the footie game today,” Eleanor asks Nick over the phone.

“Why didn’t you call Niall?”

“I tried. I think he’s probably still in bed.”

“Well, he’s a normal person then.”

“Please, I know you’ve been up for hours and trying to be quiet so Harry wakes up rested to blow you after a round of yoga.”

“That’s neither here nor there. Do you still have that top Pixie bought when she was in New York with Aimee?”

“No. She said she needed it back for something. What did you wear when you last went?”

“With my dad on Christmas? Nothing that would work for today’s forecast. I don’t know, just find something red and you’ll be golden.”

“But what if wearing red makes me look like I’m trying too hard?”

“How can you be trying too hard sitting in the stands at a footie match?”

“This is his fall family, Grim!” she whisper yells, because Sophia, much like Harry, is still sleeping even though she and her boyfriend should be in here helping tear Eleanor’s closet apart. They go to matches all the time, they know what’s appropriate.

“I know,” Nick says, his voice soothing. “And they will love you. Because you are amazing and hysterical and going to wear that white dress, the lacy one, so they get you’re beautiful too.”

“Thanks, Nick.”

“Send me pics of any good asses! And I guess the two of you. If you want.”

“But mainly the asses?”

“Mainly, yes.”

\---

The stadium is outside, obviously, and huge, and there’s no real reason Louis can think of to claim what the phenomenon is about, but he swears that every time he gets to his seat, the air smells different and better than anywhere else he’s ever been.

He tightens his grip on Eleanor’s hand because it’s a new season, a new roster, and anything is possible. She’s right here with him and who knows how far they’re going to go.

“So this is it then?” she says with a smile, and he watches her eyes pass over the pitch and the stands and finally land on him again. “The Doncaster Rovers.”

She’s so gorgeous and the team looked strong in the pre-season and he can smell it, that scent of grass and optimism and history, and he wants to keep this moment somewhere inside of him forever. “What are you doing next weekend?” he asks, his voice quiet with emotion and the volume of the people around them.

“You tell me,” Eleanor answers and he clutches at her hand again, because he can’t honestly believe his luck.

\---

“A small do, she says. With half your bloody family in attendance, El, I don’t know what you’d consider big,” he whispers to her, bouncing her cousin, Trevor, on his knee.

“Don’t swear in front of the baby. And hey,” she shoves at his shoulder. “I think I had to meet three generations from multiple families when I came round for Lottie’s birthday.”

“But we had cake for that.”

Sighing, Eleanor tells him, “Thank you for coming today. Even if there’s no cake. I know you wanted to watch the Barnsley match.”

“First thing when we get home,” he reminds her, “the tele is mine.” Which is fine because then she can talk to Sophia about how today went. Which seems like wonderfully based on the way her mum looked at her when Louis picked up Trevor and offered to change him in the other room during lunch. Maybe she won’t even have to listen to a lecture about his tattoos.

“Sure there’s nothing else you want to do when we get home?” she smirks, because watching him get his giant seeming fingers caught in the baby’s grasp while he makes goofy faces is not something she’s immune to either. 

He’d helped clear the table. 

Told her dad he really admired the new trim he’d put up in the kitchen.

“Nope. Just the footie match. Well, I guess the rest maybe after? You know, if I’m not too knackered.”

She tickles at Trevor’s tiny feet while her family catches up and covers Louis’ ears when her uncle makes the mistake of talking about the plays he’d been watching on his mobile in the back bedroom under the guise of taking a nap.

And she doesn’t care that some people look at her like she’s mental. Because Louis looks up at her with the most thankful eyes she’s ever seen.

\---

“We fucking won! Woohooo!!” Louis yells out the window of the cab, and Eleanor is giggling and trying to pull him back inside like she wants to kiss him again. Like she can’t believe she stopped kissing him and not at all that he’s going to wake up their whole neighborhood and maybe get arrested.

So he lets himself be pulled. Lets himself suck on her neck so hard it’s like he takes the laughter with the action. Lets himself slip a hand up her thigh as she repeats over his head about how she’s going to fuck him as soon as they’re home. As soon as they’re home, she’s going to fuck him.

He’s fucked her after every game this month, sometimes drunk on losses or high on victory, but always in a way that seems completely unreal. As if they’re not fully in their bodies or something.

Like right now, when Eleanor starts to moan before she realizes where they are and swallows it, a vibrating, strangled sound that reverberates in his ears and his fingertips and his dick.

“I fucking won tonight, I fucking won,” he grunts out and she strokes him through his jeans and he flying somewhere over Doncaster, over England, over the whole fucking world.

\---

“Harry, shhhh, you’re being too loud,” Eleanor mumbles, her head cradled on top of her arms on her desk, and it shouldn’t be so comfortable, but my God, it feels amazing.

“I was just trying to say that that rep from Doncaster University Centre is coming because he’s here!” Eleanor lifts herself up, blearily, as Harry continues. “I’m Harry and this is Eleanor, who you’re meeting with. Has a migraine, poor thing, but stayed just for you.”

Harry hates lying even though he does it effortlessly and she owes him some cakes or a dinner or something in exchange, she already knows. When she’s not so tired. She is always so tired lately.

“Hello, yes, my apologies,” Eleanor says, trying to blink the exhaustion out of her eyes. “I’m Eleanor Calder. You must be Ben,” she extends her hand to shake even though it’s all pins and needles from being trapped under her jaw.

“Yes, so sorry to hear you’re feeling poorly. Should we reschedule?”

Eleanor thinks about how Louis wants her at the game this weekend and she’s got two groups of prospective students coming through and the presentations at too many local colleges to remember coming up just next week. And how Ben works where she has daydreamed of working most recently. “No, of course not. Today is fine.”

She hides a yawn in her hand as Harry says he’ll get a brew for each of them, extra shot of caffeine for Eleanor. 

“Sometimes that knocks the headache right out of commission,” Ben assures her and she nods. Tries to smile.

\---

“I can’t believe you brought your iPad to a game,” he admonishes, pulling his jacket a little more tightly around himself. “You’re missing everything.”

“You’re the one that said I couldn’t skip this Tuesday night match.” She keeps typing without looking up. “And I have a presentation to deliver tomorrow that I’m not ready for after coming on Saturday.”

He’s sulking, he knows that he is, but the Rovers are down and she was late getting here coming from the office and has barely acknowledged that she’s no longer sitting at her desk. “I know, but when I said you couldn’t miss it, I meant so that we’d get a chance to talk to one another.”

“Between you screaming advice at the pitch,” Eleanor says with snark in her voice.

He presses down on the anger rising in his throat. “You can go back to yours if you want. I don’t want you to feel like you have to be here if you don’t want to be just because I asked.”

“I’m sorry, Lou, really, I am.” She puts the tablet down in her lap for the first time since they got to their seats. “I’m knackered, is all. And I know tonight we’re going to go home and have sex,” he goes to interrupt her, but she puts her finger on his lips with a smile. “And it’s going to be amazing, don’t worry about that in the slightest, but there’s only so many hours in the day. I told you what happened at work last week.”

“Almost flat out asleep at your desk, I know.” He sighs. “How much longer do we have to go on like this?”

“I wish I knew,” she says, but he misses most of it in standing up to scream about a flag on a play.

“Come on! Grow a pair of fucking eyes, you’re supposed to be an official! Ellie, are you seeing this?” When Louis glances down, she’s back to typing something else on the screen, pointer finger moving furiously. “Are you seeing this?” he asks again to Eddie, the guy in the row directly in front of theirs.

“It’s fucking bullshit.”

“We don’t deserve this. I’m telling you, it’s demoralizing.”

“They’re supposed to be impartial!”

He’s so caught up discussing the calls during the last two games with Eddie, sharing some of the fries that he brought in from McDonalds, that he misses a rogue kick making its way into the stands.

Eleanor misses it too.

Well. Her face doesn’t.

\---

“Niall put the video up on Facebook. So, it’s already on YouTube,” Louis says, carrying her in a bag of frozen sweetcorn.

“I saw. Aimee said my top looked great and Daisy is bringing over a pie before tea tomorrow.”

He places the bag on her forehead with such gentleness but it still makes her hiss and close her eyes. “You’re alright, it’s alright.”

“I have a concussion! What about the presentation at work tomorrow?”

“Harry’s going to do it, I told you.” He stops petting at her hair. “Did you honestly forget I told you that?”

“No, I remembered, but it’s supposed to be mine. I’m the one who’s supposed to do it.”

“All you’re supposed to do now is rest. We can watch _Mean Girls_. Or _Grease_. I think we should really do _Grease_. It’s in the player after all and everything.”

He’s smiling and taking care of her and she really doesn’t want to say what she knows she has to. What she’s been thinking about as she rushed away from her desk this afternoon, shoving things haphazardly into her purse and pretending that she didn’t hear her line ringing. “Louis, I don’t think I can go to the games any more.”

“Why, because of this?” He gestures at her swollen, throbbing face as though it’s a hangnail. “This is some sort of random freak thing.”

“No, not because of this. Because before you were in the picture, there was my job. And that was kind of it. And not in some terrible, oh, this poor little spinster she has to focus on her career kind of way. I like my job. I want to see where I can go with it. And I am so incredibly happy that now I have you too, but I still have everything else. I have to focus on the promotion right now and my responsibilities. And plus,” she plays with his fingers, touching them each in turn because this is hard. “You’ll have more fun going with one of the lads, not having to explain everything or deal with me in a strop. 

“But I’ve loved going with you!”

“Well, regardless, what about if you go, have an amazing time and then I’ll be here waiting.”

“Waiting?” He asks the question with a sly look in his eyes and some part of her knows she’s going to find out tonight whether she’s actually up for sex while concussed.

She confirms with the tone in her voice that yes, she is still very up for fucking after a match. “Waiting. And I won’t be distracted or tired and you will be the only thing I’m thinking about.”

“Do you think if you kept your head really still and I did all the work, you’d enjoy it even a little bit?”

“I’m willing to try. As long as it’s okay if I close my eyes.”

“Yeah, do what you have to do,” he says, going to kiss her.

\---

Louis is waiting on line at Nando’s at what feels like the shortest lunch break of his life. “Yep, she’s fine. Bit of a headache this morning but the doctor said that’s to be expected.”

“That’s good, mate. Happy to hear it. Sorry again I didn’t pick up,” Zayn said, finally having crawled out of last night’s self-imposed cell phone ban. It’s not unusual for him to claim when he’s on a deadline, or when he’s more often just really not sure where he last put his mobile.

There’s still six people ahead of him in line and he wishes again that he had had any food in. “Nah, don’t worry about it. And hey, while I have you, do you want to go the match this weekend?”

“Thought you were going with Eleanor. She think she’s not going to be up for it?”

“No, not at all, I was already fighting her about going in to work today.”

“So what’s the problem?” Louis can hear Zayn typing on the other end of the line. He hopes it’s an e-mail and not a start of some sort of midday wank session. Ever since Zayn started doing all of his graphic design from home a few months ago too many boundaries have fallen by the wayside.

“She said she needs a break is all.”

“Wait, she’s going to stop going to the games with you?”

“Just for a little while.” He checks his watch on the pause. “With the promotion and everything, she’s just feeling slammed.”

Zayn needles, “And how are you feeling?”

“Oh shove it, I’m feeling fine. She’s busy is all.”

“We’re all busy,” Zayn reminds Louis, and he doesn’t like the prickly way the words feel under his skin.

“Do you want to go or not?”

“Yeah, sure, would love to.”

“Great. Be ready to go by noon on Saturday. And not half past. Noon.”

“Yeah, yeah, fine. Go get your chicken.”

Louis hangs up, but he’s not really all that hungry any more.

\---

She knows he’s told her tons of times that it’s perfectly alright if she shows up on site, even if he’s with the kids, but she’s never taken him up on it.

There’s a little extra thrill about it, surprising him instead of the inverse where he comes on what should be her lunch break and sits on the edge of her desk, eating from a packet of almonds and joking with Harry between rubbing her shoulders or shooting her looks.

She can hear some boys playing in the gym, and a pair of them run past her, trainers squeaking on the floors.

Louis’ room is the last one on the right and even with the door open, it’s quiet.

Because when she rounds the corner, it’s just him at his desk, writing something down in a notebook. He’s got on the gray button down, the really soft one, and he’d accidentally dropped one of his contacts in the sink that morning so he’s wearing his glasses, and it looks so perfect in this setting. She lets herself enjoy it for a moment, as long as she feels she can possibly stand it. 

“No lads today?” and she can tell he’s a little bit spooked at first before his smile overtakes his whole face.

“Nah, figured we’d had enough goal sharing for the afternoon. Two of them have actually shown up for a non-mandatory revision session this week, so, deserve some time to run around like idiots.” He’s dropped the paperwork and comes over to kiss her, pushing her hair behind her ear while he does. “But what about you, what are you doing here? I thought you had to work?”

“Oh, I am working,” she taps her fingers over his chest. She loves this shirt.

“This is a very interesting new division of your job title.”

“Well, I’m supposed to be getting my affairs in order according to the big boss. And picking up my travel companion most certainly seems like a part of that.”

“Travel companion?”

“It appears that there’s some prospective international students who have been contacting the university. And they want me to go meet with them.” She bounces on her toes a little, she can’t help it. “In Paris! And I’m taking you with me.”

“Now?”

“Right now!” She can feel the grin threatening to hurt in just a moment. “You set your charges free already, let’s go! French weekend! Crepes and Gauloises and hotel sex. All of it.”

He pulls back from her embrace. Rubs at the back of his neck. “I have to be honest, this isn’t the best timing for me.”

“Do you have a lot of work?” She looks forlornly at the pile of admin on his desk. “Or wait, is this the weekend you told Ashton you’d help him prepare for the job interviews?”

“No, just...we’re playing Leyton Orient.”

Eleanor really tries to understand what he’s just told her, because he can’t possibly mean what it sounds like. “Leyton Orient?”

“Yeah, you knew. It’s on the calendar. And well, I mean, its Leyton Orient. They need me.”

“They need you,” she reiterates, because even though it didn’t work the first time, maybe if he hears how truly ridiculous he sounds, they can just catch their train and forget about this completely mental conversation. Because Eleanor needs him too, wants him on top of that as well, and can actually express that to him as opposed to a club team.

“What?” His delivery suggests that he, thank God, can realize she’s aggravated.

“Louis, when your girlfriend asks you to go to Paris, you go!”

“Alright, I’ll go.” He shrugs and Eleanor knows she was happy just a moment ago. Ecstatic even. But she doesn’t think this counts as a mood swing if it’s being motivated by something other than her hormones.

“You’ll go? Thanks for the enthusiasm.” She pulls the strap of her bag fervently back up her shoulder and storms towards the door, walking faster than she thought she could in these shoes.

“Hey, slow down. Wait.”

His footsteps trail hers and when his fingers graze along her back it’s gentle and she wants things to be easy again. She doesn’t want to fight for his attention all the time. Because that’s what this feels like. Some sort of fucked up battle where she’s the other woman. “Just go and enjoy the match, Lou. Go for a pint after on me.”

He looks at her like he’s concerned and guilty and right pissed off all at the same time. “This is the second day in a row you’ve snapped at me.”

Eleanor’s sigh sounds like a growl and she didn’t want to do this here, in a school corridor that smells like years of cafeteria lunches. “I’m late.”

“Fine, go,” he snaps right back before turning to head in the direction they had come, and she can’t go and leave things like this.

“No, Louis,” she calls after him. “I’m late.” She emphasizes the word just as two boys come out of the washroom and snicker.

“If I smell anything illegal in there, so help you, God,” Louis hollers, and they quickly scurry off the opposite way. He reaches over and rubs at her elbow and she can just barely feel the touch through the knit of her jumper. “How late?”

“A week and a half.”

She hasn’t told anyone. Not Sophia or Aimee or Daisy. Not even herself really because now is not the time for this.

“Okay, that’s not that late.”

“No, it is for me.” She feels quiet and embarrassed and like she’s done something wrong even though that’s absurd. Almost like the headmaster is going to come and chastise her for having sex out of wedlock.

“Well, you’ve been stressed, right? And, I mean, it’s not been that long, if you are, of course, because they did the test at hospital when you had the CAT scan done.” His grip keeps tightening on her arm. “So, we’ve got time and it’s not like we’re the first people to...”

“Take a deep breath.”

He does, but when he lets it out he still looks a little bit like a deflating balloon. “El, why didn’t you tell me?”

“I was trying not to think about it." She scuffs the toe of her boot against the floor. "And then I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and I wanted to wait and figure out how to do it the right way. When this trip came up, I don't know. It seemed special. I don’t care if that’s dumb. But you don’t see us sharing something like this, tangled up in the sheets with the Eiffel Tower in the background. You see that Rob Jones is striking.”

“He’s actually a defender,” Louis says, like he can’t stop himself, but he has the decency to shake his head and the thought with it. “Alright, look, I admit, I should have reacted differently. If I ever build a time machine, that’s when I’m going back to. Whoosh, Paris, let’s do it!”

“I have a train to catch at 5.”

“Alright, well I’ll run home, pack a bag, and we can go.”

She doesn’t nod. Doesn’t agree at all. “The trip’s already off to a weird start. We’ll talk about it when I get back.”

“You’re sure? You’re okay with that?”

Eleanor wants to sob and climb into bed and have him make her cup of that ginger tea that was actually Sophia’s and that she’s never really cared for before. And she knows her eyes are glassy and that she’s probably going to need a long stare down with herself in the toilets to get through her trip without crying on public transport but she says, “I’ll be better if you give me a kiss and wish me luck.”

“Good luck,” he says, with one last squeeze on her elbow before he leans in to kiss her cheek.

It’s chaste and foreign feeling against her skin, but apparently erotic enough that one of the boys feels the need to whistle and shout, “Way to go, Mr. Tommo!”

“If I turn around and see your face, it’ll never see the light of day again,” he yells back in response, and like the other group before, she can see the kid making a run for it.

“I’ll see you in a couple of days.”

“You’re going to do great,” he tells her and it takes all of her courage to answer.

“I know I am.”

\---

The phone rings and rings and he doesn’t remember dozing off, but he and Ollie must have had too many after the Orient slaughter. Because now it’s dark outside and there’s some American sitcom on the tele he’s never seen. He fumbles for his mobile in the couch, his fingers still tingly and sleep dumb.

“Hello,” he slurs into it, after hitting the green button even though all that came up on the display was a phone number and not a contact’s name.

“I got it,” a woman’s voice says, quiet and far away.

“Ellie?” he asks, because it sounds like her, but sad and alone in a hotel room in Paris probably.

She repeats, “I got it,” and he should be there with her so maybe he’d understand what exactly it is she’s trying to say. So he’s not the most terrible boyfriend.

“Their acceptance letters?” is all he can think of what she could have possibly gotten.

When she clarifies, “My period,” it hits him right behind his ribcage. “I can tell you were sleeping.”

“No. I’m up, I’m up.” He forces himself to sit upright. To get the drowsiness out of his throat.

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

And even though she’s maybe already hung up, or moved the phone away, he calls out, “Hey, El?” He hesitates, for a moment because he wants to be able to hold her and see her face and just know without asking. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” But her voice still sounds distant and lonely and well, that makes sense.

“Safe trip,” he wishes her, but there’s no response and she’s already gone.

He stumbles over to the table and the bag he left there next to three pizza crusts he didn’t want.

Louis takes out the bodysuit he’d bought while Ollie was taking a piss. He runs his fingers over the _dribbling for the Rovers_ embroidery until he realizes it’s nearly half two in the morning and he’s fondling an infant garment in his kitchen.

The receipt is right there in the bag when he goes to put it back, but for whatever reason he takes the whole thing into his room. Makes some room for it in one of his drawers before collapsing on the bed. Stares at the ceiling as his hangover starts prickling behind his eyes and still can’t fall back asleep.

\---

She’d told Louis he didn’t have to get her at the station, she could walk or get a cab, but he’d insisted on coming with the car.

He pecks at her cheek, like he’s greeting his nan, and takes her overnighter onto his own shoulder. “Trip was alright?”

“Alright, yeah,” she confirms, and then it’s quiet.

Quiet while they walk through the light layer of snow that’s fallen while she’s been away to where he’s found a bit of parking and quiet as he opens the car’s door for her. At least then there’s some old _Fall Out Boy_ coming from the speakers off a CD he found while cleaning out the boot of his mother’s car a few weeks ago. The third track skips as he turns onto her street.

Louis questions, “You want me to come up?” and she’s not sure exactly how to answer it.

What she says though is, “No.” Just no. No explanation or extrapolation. Just a no.

And she’s pushing the door open, digging in her purse for her keys when she hears him asking, “Hey, El, did you want a baby?”

She turns to look at him, seeming really small behind the wheel of the car. “Eventually.” Because she does, eventually. When things don’t feel as fragile as they do right now.

“Well, eventually you will.” He say it matter of factly, and it feels presumptuous and sweet in equal measure. Because he knows she goes after what she wants, tries hard and perseveres but also how can be possibly predict the future when she doesn’t even know where this conversation is going to go.

She closes the door again, all the heat flying out onto the street otherwise. “Louis, can I say something? Because I keep thinking it and that has yet to do me any good.”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Okay. So I realized on the train ride there that I’ve been with you for almost a year now, and I was thinking I was having your baby, and at that moment, what else was I going to do but consider if you were the guy. If this was it, and what our lives were going to be like and how it was going to work and whether we’d be happy. And I think we would be, Lou, I really think we would, but, that was it. I thought it. I wasn’t sure. Because like, Nick and Harry’s party this weekend? I know already we’re playing The Millers, I checked as soon as Nick sent the invite, and so I’ll be going alone. And that’s fine, I’m okay with that, but how far does that go? Gran, don’t die, the Rovers have an away match, or doctor, we need to induce labor because they’re playing Burton tomorrow.”

“Do you remember last summer?” His voice is agitated and she can see how tightly his one hand is gripping at the steering wheel. “This was exactly what you liked about me! I was capable of being passionate about something and feeling this devotion.”

“Yes, but you feel it for the Doncaster Rovers! And I was hoping one day you might redirect that. All those things you feel for that team? I feel them about you.”

“Eleanor, I love you, you have to know that, right?” 

He’d told her the first time from bed, in the morning, while she brushed her hair out and tried to get the same stubborn pieces into a braid. She’d asked him what the time was, and his head cradled on a pillow in the reflection of the mirror, this sleepy, dopey smile on his face, he’d said simply, “It’s 7:13 and I’m in love with you.”

And he’d said it in other ways too, not just the words, but in the way that he held the small of her back, or turned off the tele when she came home, and how at Christmas he’d given her an advent calendar that wasn’t filled with chocolates but instead each day something he adored about her.

The way he’s looking at her right now, like she’s hurt him so much saying these things, she knows he loves her. She just doesn’t know if it’s enough.

“I know, I’m sorry, I’m tired, me. Just...I need to go on up. I’ll call after I’ve had a kip. Maybe we can do tea tonight.”

“If you’re up for it.”

She nods and doesn’t kiss him goodbye and inside the flat it’s cold and even the dog is mad at her for going away for the weekend.

\---

Callum is supposed to be working on his CV because Louis' told him twice now that he's not running copies of the thing until it at least somewhat resembles any of the examples they've looked at together, but it's been more than half an hour and Louis hasn't heard him touch the keys once. 

"If you're trying to catch me in a standoff, you're going to lose. Got my whole cereal cupboard right here in the desk and nowhere to be tonight."

"What about your girlfriend? Won't she miss having to look at your gross face?"

He continues scrolling through his phone, not even looking up. "Insulting her isn't going to finish the assignment."

"Sir, I wasn't insulting her, I was insulting you. Are you sure you're qualified to teach us anything?"

"Write your fucking assignment," he says, toneless. 

"Language, Coach Tommo!" Callum admonishes and Louis really wishes he did have somewhere to be this evening. "Don't be mad at me because she doesn't want to see you."

Louis slams his mobile down on the desk. "Is this fun for you? Is sitting here in a room with me honestly what you want to be doing with your time? Because you need way more help than any of us here can give you if that's the case."

"Sorry, sir," he mutters, while finally hitting something on the keyboard. "I'm sure your girlfriend thinks you're great."

"She's great, alright? Definitely the best girl I’ve ever gone out with. Smartest, best looking." 

"How's the sex?" Callum asks, switching from remorseful to cheeky much too quickly for Louis' liking. 

"The sex is amazing.” He stares Callum down until he goes back to looking at the computer screen. 

It's blissfully quiet, just the clicking of keys and the heat coming up, and Louis doesn't even honestly care what he's typing. _I fucking hate Coach tommo_ over and over again, great work ethic, Callum, but maybe capitalize the T in Tommo, you know, it being a name and all. 

Of course it's not long before Callum's asking, "But why if the sex is amazing does she not want to see you?"

"It's complicated."

"That's what adults say when it's really simple but they're being idiots."

"Alright, if it's so simple, tell me what you do when your girlfriend thinks you don't love her enough because you love other things too."

Callum goes to lean back in his chair. "So she's jealous of the Rovers."

"If we're talking, you're typing."

He slams the front legs of the chair down and purposefully presses on a key. "But I'm right, right?"

Louis doesn't give him the satisfaction of confirming, but just goes right into the stuff he's been angrily mulling over since the weekend. “What if I had a second job? Or charity work? Or I was finishing an opera? What if any of that was the situation? Would that be okay with her?"

“Alright, Mr. Tommo, I'm just going to say it. You love the Rovers, but have they ever loved you back?”

"Finish your assignment. I'm giving you another fifteen minutes, it's getting ridiculous."

"Just think about it, sir," and there is not enough liquor in the world. 

\---

"So you're still okay that Louis isn't coming tonight?" Sophia asks while wrapping another strand of Eleanor's hair around the curling iron. 

She's happy to see that her expression is placid in the mirror. "He never said that he was."

"But, El..."

"Do you think the headband or the clip?" She asks instead, fingering at both on top of the vanity. "Harry said the headband but I think that's just because he's hoping I take it off and leave it somewhere in the flat and he can claim rights to it."

"The clip then," Sophia says, thankfully letting the Louis subject drop. "With my new MAC lipstick."

"The red?"

Sophia bounces a curl of Eleanor's against her palm, testing it. "Yes. Hold still, " she suggests, blasting the hair with spray. "I didn't like it with the dress I got, the gold in it's too warm. And, I swear, only Grim and Harry would have a Great Gatsby fancy dress for absolutely no reason and we'd all spend half a paycheque for it."

"It's not for no reason, Soph. They watched the Leo movie at least eight times on their Christmas holidays. Harry's been calling Nick 'Old Sport' since New Years."

She snorts. "Oh, I'm sure Nick loves that."

"I'm only nine years older than you, Harold! Nine years is nothing!" Eleanor imitates Nick, hand waving and everything. "You're going to be my age before you know it."

Suggesting, "Alright, watch that you don't burn yourself," Sophia sets one last curl near Eleanor's temple and slides the clip behind her ear, pinning it in place. "You like? I won't spray again if you say no."

"I do. It's perfect."

"Good, close your eyes then," she says right before a cloud of chemicals overtakes Eleanor's head. "Alright, go, put your dress on, and meet me back in here. I'll help with your eyelashes if you need it."

"You'll have to zip me up too!" Eleanor shouts from the hallway. 

"Or I could," Louis offers, scaring her from where he's sitting on her bed with slicked back hair and a tie tucked into a waistcoat. "If you'd like me to."

Her hand is still paused on the zipper of her hoodie. "I thought you were going to the match?"

"But we have a party invite."

"You're not taking the piss," she questions. 

"Look at me! Doesn't this seem like a lot to put together for taking the piss?"

She feels the joy bubbling up inside her. "Well, when you commit, you commit."

"Exactly," he says, reaching out and taking her hand. He toys with her fingers, his touch comforting and warm and welcome. "I don't want you to doubt that I'm going to show up. I'm going to show up, El."

When she says, "I love you," her voice is thick, and it makes him squeeze at her reassuringly. 

"None of that now. Sophia will kill me if your makeup takes longer to get perfect. Let's hurry up and go. Can't wait for everyone to see how good you look."

She leans down to press their mouths together, the first time in what feels like ages, and she's missed it. "How happy I look," Eleanor adjusts his statement. "Thank you."

He goes bashful and open and states, "I want to be the guy. And I want you to know that."

Nodding first, she has to kiss him again, with his fancy dress and earnestness and the same cologne as the first day she met him. Eleanor wants to smell it every day. On her pillows and his neck and just in the air in their flat. She wants it to be the thing that reminds her of home. 

\---

“I can’t believe you’re not at the Rotham game,” Liam says, sipping on his martini. 

Louis says, “If Rotham looked like that in a dress, I’d be at the game,” because it feels like something Liam will understand better than I'm in love with her in a way I still don't know how to measure and I'm excited and terrified and striving all the time. 

She's over by the turntables Nick's squeezed into a corner of the dining room, laughing, full and happy, as she and Daisy try to do the Charleston. He watches as they put their hands on one another's knees, their nails bright against the weave of the stockings, and tries to breathe.

Aimee passes by, shedding feathers from all three of the boas she's got on, and Louis grabs the white one from around her shoulders. "Have to commandeer this, Aims. For love."

"Thank you!" Ian yells at him from across the room. "Don't give it back to her. Thurston already destroyed one of them all over our bedroom."

"I guess if it's for love," Aimee says, lowly so just he can hear and then raising the volume of her voice. "And Ian, if you'd been walking him like you were supposed to, our bedroom wouldn't look like the scene of a duck murder."

Harry calls out, louder than any of them, "Old Sport, remember I want us to be Duck Murder the next time we go to a pub quiz!" and Louis laughs as Nick just hangs his head and waves half heartedly at his flushed, drunk boyfriend. 

The boa is soft in Louis' hands as he slips it over Eleanor's head, skims it along her nose and collarbones from behind, before giving a little tug once it's settled on her chest. "I have to steal her away, Daisy. She's just too pretty to look at from across the room any more."

Daisy giggles as Eleanor presses herself flush against him. "She's a terrible dancer, good luck."

"We're all terrible dancers, look around," Eleanor says, gesturing most specifically at what Gellz is doing in the doorway of the kitchen.

"Just want to sway with you anyway. Think we can manage?" He asks quietly into the air over her ear that smells like hairspray and perfume and other female mysteries. 

"I'd love to." 

They move slowly, back and forth no more than centimeters in any direction, completely off beat with the quick pace of the playlist. Louis knows if he opened his eyes, he'd see people watching them, but it's also easy to pretend it's just the two of them, this soundtrack and a feather boa. 

Until Niall is yelling out to Liam, "Fucking Rotham!" and her hands drift from where they were perched against his shoulder blades towards his ears.

"Nah, you don't have to do that. I chose you, I'm here with you."

He looks at her. Pleased, face lit up bright and beautiful, as Niall continues, "Up by three now! Can't fucking stand this," and Louis knows exactly what he means. 

\---

Louis had draped his coat over her shoulders while they waited for a cab that never came until it made more sense to just start walking back towards hers. It was clear and cold and she liked the way they were huddling against one another. How he kept telling her to keep the jacket, its wool rough against her throat, though she could see the way he was biting back shivers. 

She watches their breath intermingle and strokes at his wrist even once she stops feeling her fingertips.

When her flat comes into view, she tugs at his arm, picking up the pace with her heels echoing on the asphalt, but he's the one who pulls back on her. "You must be proper frozen," she tells him. "Come on."

"I don't even feel it."

"What do you feel then?"

"Happy." He grins and shrugs. "Drunk. Fucking in love with you."

Eleanor kisses him then and his fingers tangle in her hair. There's a burst of chilly air against her neck as he does, but his mouth is warm. He grasps at her hip, pulling her closer as his coat slips off her onto the sidewalk.

She shudders at the change in temperature. The drag of his teeth on her lower lip. The building pressure in her gut that she knows will take her breath away when it's finally allowed to burst. 

"Alright, let's get you in," he says, pulling back like its a struggle. "Don't want you to catch your death." He bends down to pick the jacket from the ground but uses the opportunity to stutter step his fingertips up her legs. Push her skirt higher and press a kiss right above her knee. 

There's not time for her to ask why because he's scooped the coat into his arms and is asking for her keys and three steps ahead. 

They forgot to turn the heat down before they left and the flat is broiling compared to outside. She thinks about lowering the thermostat, cracking a window, but Louis has her back pressed up against the door before she can do either. Her arms in his hands above her head, that good kind of stretch and suggestion of things to come.

His palms still feel like ice as they then slide underneath her dress and across the waistband of her stockings, ekeing goosebumps up all along her stomach. "You really like them, don't you?" she asks, even though his ragged breathing has already answered the question. 

"Been thinking about taking them off all night. When Daisy was adjusting your knees, I can't even talk about it."

"Was that why you pulled me away?" She strokes the back of his neck, the only place right now that his hair feels like his. 

"Just wanted to touch you." He skims his mouth along her pulse point, the place the thin strap of her dress hovers over her shoulder, while his thumbs press against her hipbones. 

The elastic stretches tautly across his knuckles, pulling, and she says, "Careful now, don't rip them."

He groans at the suggestion, and she feels his teeth scrape along her skin.

"You really want to do it since I suggested it, don't you?"

"Yeah.” Louis tugs a little harder, and she feels the nylon cling more tightly on her thighs. “How much could they cost? A fiver?"

"Try twenty."

"Twenty?" he sighs. "Alright, I don’t know if I want to do it twenty quid worth."

Eleanor shimmies, not caring much any more if they run or his fingers go right through. “Well get them off however you’re going to manage it, go on with it.” Because she’s feeling tight and prickly and hot and and wants to feel him instead of all of that.

He drops down in front of her again, like on the street, and she still can’t believe that something that intimate happened where she walks the dog and her neighbors tend their planters. That spot he pressed his mouth is still maybe damp if she focusses on it, or maybe she’s just crazy. But then her dress is bunched up again in his hands, the glittery bits all rubbing together, and his exhale is ghosting across her abdomen.

His lips again make contact with her, by her belly button, and then that little curve on her hip that never gets any smaller no matter how many exotic crunches she and Sophia find examples of online. He loves that spot, the one that usually makes her feel the most imperfect and exposed, and he touches it a second time, tenderly, like he knows.

Slowly, so incredibly slowly, she feels the stockings slipping under the ministrations of his hand, the right one. The one that’s not still holding up her dress and keeping her against the door. And then his mouth is on the other side, dragging in an attempt to get the band somewhat even. It’s a failure, mostly, but she feels herself growing wet any way. As wet as his tongue on her thigh. The sweat that’s beading up along her hairline.

She wants to press his head, guide him between her legs and deep inside of her, but she knows the waiting will make it better. That she can do this. Because part of her has been waiting for this for longer than when she kissed him on the street. Beyond the first time he made her stomach clench, or her breath go quick. She’s been waiting since before she met him, when she only started to think that maybe something like this could be possible.

He’s managed to free one of her arse cheeks but hit a snag with the other, and she’s laughing at how silly it is and how she shouldn’t be turned on by it, but she is, and how there’s something perfect about being able to laugh at a situation like this.

“This was much easier in my head,” he says. “Oh fuck, you’ve still got your shoes on, don’t you?”

She’s full on giggling now, half dressed in her living room as Louis struggles with the dynamics of this all. “Let’s go to bed.”

“I wanted to try this though! It seemed really cool in my head.”

“It was really cool in life too, but I think we’ve let it run its course.” She taps the top of his head. “Up now. Kiss please.”

“Do you think I could use these tights as leverage?” He looks up at her, a little dazed. “I’m realizing right now how much I actually had to drink tonight the longer we’re talking.”

“Enough talking then.” She rests her hand on his temple, guiding his head between her legs.

He delivers the kiss she’d requested there, delicately, too soft to make her feel much of anything through the two layers of material other than a yearning kind of lust. She can’t believe he makes her think phrases like a yearning kind of lust. And then he groans and presses more intensely into her and she can believe it. She can believe anything he’d like to convince her of.

“Alright, I can do this. We can do this.” He lets go of her dress, and she feels it settle back over her body, the parts of her he’s exposed haphazardly. The lining strange against her as he slowly rises from his knees, one leg at a time. 

“You alright, Grandpa?”

“Please, virile and young enough to fuck you after all those ancient drinks your friends whipped up for the sake of a theme. And we’ll see whose legs don’t work when I’m done with you.”

She shivers then, hot and cold and wanting, and forces her mouth against his. Probably uses too much teeth and tongue but not able to stop herself. Her tights tangled on her thighs, his touch a temptation and a satisfaction, she kisses him.

The bedroom is dark and warm as she watches their clothing pile up on the floor. She wants to run every one of his tattoos across her tongue. She knows that she could and she’s so happy he stayed that first night. That so much has happened here.

Her body lays down on the sheets, one of her older pairs that’s soft and nubby, and he starts to eat her out, good and proper, messy and loud in a way that probably would have embarrassed her at another time. She moans and clenches as his weight presses onto her thighs. Tries to spread her wider and more open and she would do it if she could. She’d bend herself inside out and backwards.

She pants out about how she’s going to come, she’s going to, Louis, “I’m so fucking close”, but he doesn’t stop. He’s still all fingers and tongue and focussed intent. A hand reaching up to graze her breast. To press into her pelvis, yes, right there, right fucking there, and she pulls at his hair and comes. Writhes and feels like she spreads out to fill the whole room for a moment. Bursting bright.

When she opens her eyes, he’s just propped up on his elbows, watching her. “See. Told you I could do that, still,” he says, voice ragged and face flushed as she tries to catch her breath. “Calling me offensive names.”

“Still haven’t seen what your dick can do tonight,” she teases, feeling that confusing mix of light and heavy at the same time.

He pushes himself higher up the bed, his obvious erection dragging by her thigh as he reaches for where she keeps her condoms. They’re still tucked beneath a pair of overly furry sleep socks because that’s where she’s kept them since she bought her first pack in college, and he knows that. He doesn’t think it’s silly enough to comment on.

Lying there, she lets him open the packet, roll it on. Just watches, grinning dopily, loving him.

He looks at her, asking permission, and she nods. Feels the breath he exhales easing in fill her own lungs before he bottoms out and there’s nothing left to breathe for a moment. She wraps her legs around him as he pulls back, and he groans and moves his hands to her face. one on each side, making them look only at one another.

She knows how serious he is, right then, his eyes dark and everything deliberate. Once again, her breath catches, hitches on all the things she’s feeling. He’s proving something and she believes it, all of it, as he thrusts into her. This isn’t their giggly, banter and challenge kind of sex any more. It’s something that feels that same kind of light and heavy way. Like too much and just barely enough. Meaningful but expected.

And Eleanor thinks she might honestly start to cry, just from the way he’s looking at her, but then his eyes are slamming shut, and she didn’t think he was close. But she didn’t think she was either, and there’s her own orgasm ricocheting all the way out to her fingers and curling toes. She’s never come this way before, from just someone inside of her, but she is right now, shaking and grimacing and still very much on the verge of an emotional reaction she wasn’t prepared for.

She thinks he’s repeating that she’s beautiful. That he loves her.

All she can really hear is the blood pulsing through her ears. The sound of her happiness chaotic inside that beat of her pulse.

\---

“This might be the greatest night of my life,” he says, after she kisses his palm and then turns so that imprint is pressed to her own cheek.

She mewls, like the cat they had for awhile when he was a kid. “Do you want something to eat? I’m proper starving.”

He laughs, nods and swats at her bottom as she makes her way around the bedroom, looking for something to put on.

“Check your messages, your phone won’t stop going off,” she says, throwing it in his general direction on the mattress.

When he looks at the screen, he can see that Stan had tried to call him 6 times, and then his mobile is buzzing in his hand again with another incoming call. “You alright, mate?” he answers, and then immediately has to pull the phone away from his ear.

“WE WON!!! WE WERE LOSING FOUR TO NOTHING AND WE WON. IT WAS UNBELIEVABLE. IT’S THE GREATEST NIGHT IN THE HISTORY OF THE STADIUM.”

“What?!” Louis jolts up in bed, any trace of relaxation gone. “You can’t be serious.”

“YOU MISSED THE GREATEST GAME EVER,” Stan howls into his ear and Louis feels the clammy kind of sweat settle over his skin as Stan disconnects the call.

He immediately opens the ESPN UK app, and there it is, the score and highlights and comments upon comments about how Stan wasn’t wrong, this probably was the best game ever.

Louis makes a noise like he’s possibly dying or going to be sick, struggling to find his pants.

Eleanor’s cooking eggs over the range in the oversized TopShop tee that advertises she’s in the Brunch club. “I’m doing just scrambled I think. I was going to do omelettes, but getting anything else out of the fridge seemed like too much effort. That alright?”

“They won,” he breathes out, wondering how everything else seems so ordinary. “That’s why Stan called. They won.”

“The Rovers?” She grins exceptionally wide, holding up the spatula. “That’s amazing! This really is your night!”

He grits his teeth a little, the anger curling in his stomach and making him feel nauseous as the eggs cook in the pan. “No, you don’t understand, it was the best game ever. They came back at the end and scored five goals. That NEVER happens. And I never miss a game. But, now I do and this happens. This is like a punishment from God.”

“A few minutes ago you said this might be the best night of your life.” He can hear how sad he’s making her, but he can’t seem to stop himself. 

“Yeah, a few minutes ago it was!”

She looks back at the pan, moving the yellow food around. “I didn’t tell you not to go.”

“No, I just suddenly had a whim after over a decade of never missing a minute of play to not go to a Millers game!” He punches at the wall, the pain radiating up to his shoulder in a way that makes him hiss.

“Wasn’t it just you yourself who said tonight it was just a game?” She’s annoyed but he feels too exposed and fragile and like nothing makes any fucking sense.

“Sure kick me while I’m down, great.”

Eleanor tells him, “It’s just a match,” firmly, like he’s a child.

“Clearly it is not _just_ a match, El. Obviously I wouldn’t care about it this much if it was _JUST_ a match.” He flexes the fingers of the hand he hit the wall with. Feels his knuckles burn with the stretch. “Twenty two years! Do you still care about anything you cared about twenty two years ago? What about ten? What about five? Name me a single thing you’ve cared about for twenty two years.”

She’s starting to cry, her cheeks going pink along with the tip of her nose, and even that can’t stop the fury in his guts. “No, yeah, there isn’t actually. Because twenty two years ago, I was seven, and if I still wanted to marry Ricky Martin I would think that my life had gone terribly wrong.” Her voice breaking, walking away from the eggs that are starting to smell a little singed, she tells him, “You broke my heart, Louis Tomlinson.”

And she closes the bathroom door but he can hear her sobbing on the phone on the other side of it while he picks up his fancy dress attire and the jacket that still smells like her and leaves the flat.

\---

Harry comes over. Leaves his own party and comes, bringing with him one rather large bottle of Absolut and half of a Victoria Sponge that Daisy had apparently made two days ago and left in their fridge.

“Aimee was vomiting in the guest toilet or she’d be here,” he informs her, as she licks jam out from the center directly with her fingers. “And Ian thought Nick probably should help carry her to bed eventually. Want me to try to Sophia again?”

Eleanor shakes her head, and leans into his chest on the bathroom floor. “What does it say about me that the person who’s loved me the most still loves a football club more?”

“Nothing. It doesn’t say anything about you.”

“It’s not fair. Its the most fucking unfair thing and I’m so mad you made me text him back to begin with.” She can feel herself starting to cry again, which means she must have stopped and not even realized.

Harry pets at her hair, unscrews the bottle of vodka with his other hand. “You can be mad about that. I’m mad about it too.”

\---

He tried to call. For awhile. Until Liam rang him up and said it was probably a good idea if he stopped. That if she wanted to talk to him, she would have picked up any of those thousand times.

And Louis knows he fucked up and can’t even really apologize for it. Throws himself instead into work and shittily playing the piano again at his mum’s when he goes to visit, and, of course, the Rovers.

Back to doing all the things he used to when he was in college and even younger, like wearing something red every day, and eating a spoonful of jam at breakfast on days they had a game scheduled. These weird superstitious quirks that he thinks somehow control the outcome of a match.

And when he can’t control it, when they’d lose anyway even though he’d had two cups of tea from his Rover mug, everything would feel that much more depressing and like it didn’t make sense.

But still, he thinks it was two nights ago at the pub, that he was ranting to Stan and Ollie about how the Rovers never let you down, not really. Yes, maybe they lose, even when they shouldn’t, but they’re here, every August, ready to give it another go. The Rovers don’t break up, or get divorced. And yeah, maybe they lose, but they don’t make you doubt your faith in everything. He’s not entirely sure what it was he was saying, just that he was drunk and hurting and it seemed to make sense at the time.

It wasn’t perfect, but they were there. They let you be there.

Even if being there meant seeing Chester City wipe the floor with them last night. He blearily looks at his messages, feeling hungover and wrung out, because Stan and Ollie both won’t stop sending exclamation points and nonsense emojis of food and praise hands and footballs.

He’d said he wasn’t up for eating, not up for much of anything other than watching depressing highlight reels on YouTube.

 _Better have something amazing on if you want to get me out of the house_ , he texts in their group WhatsApp.

Stan responds, _Curtis Main is eating three tables over!!!!_ mere seconds before Ollie uploads a really shitty looking blurry picture that could be Curtis Main, but frankly could be anyone in a black t-shirt. _Get here before he finishes_ , Stan suggests, and it makes Louis mad.

Because he’d been lamenting that they were probably not going to make it through the next round, didn’t even want to order a sad amount of takeaway and eat it in his pants in bed, and Curtis Main is just out there having a meal like he’s not even bothered.

And staring at his phone, Louis realizes how fucking insane he’s actually been. Because they’re doing a job, that’s all. The same way he goes in to work and tries to keep his kids from getting charged with ASBOs. They put on their kits. They play a game. And they win it or lose it. And the world goes on, and there’s another match, another play, another day at the office basically. It’s not an obsession. It’s not love.

 _I’m an idiot_ , he types onto his phone before shoving it into his pocket, trying to find his keys.

\---

“So, what do we think of this Ben?” Nick asks her, willingly taking another bag of crisps from her outstretched hands. “Is this a social call or purely a business one?”

“Just carry the snacks, please, Grimshaw.”

He shrugs, the pyramid of junk shifting precariously in his arms. “I’m only saying I realize it’s been a couple of months.”

“Weeks,” Eleanor corrects, even though he’s not wrong. It just feels much too strange to say months about the amount of time that’s passed since their Great Gatsby do and the ensuing fallout.

“Months are made up of weeks, love,” he says, right as her doorbell rings.

\---

Louis honestly checks the mat at the front door even though the man Louis has never seen before is clearly holding Pepper. A man who’s taller than he is and broader, and wearing a polo that Louis can tell is expensive just from looking at it. 

Louis hates him on sight.

“Hi, um, is Eleanor in?” he asks, reaching out to pet the dog and getting a growl in return for his trouble.

He responds, “Aw, that’s not nice, Pep,” scratching at him under his neck. “Yeah, here she is, mate,” and Louis just watches as she comes into view. She looks thinner to him, thinner like she wasn’t trying to get that way, and the guilt tastes like battery acid in his mouth. “You alright to talk to him,” Louis can hear the jerk ask her and has to watch as she nods, and touches at his forearm and assures him, “We’re fine, Ben,” before stepping out onto her front steps and closing the door behind her.

“Who the fuck is Ben?” Louis asks, unable to stop himself.

“Louis, don’t do this.”

He feels hysterical, but that’s been kind of par for the course since January. That or a crippling numbness that somehow is even worse. “Don’t do what?”

She rubs at her arms where they’re crossed against her body. “A group of us just had this work thing, and we came back after.”

“Are you on a date?” He might be sick, right here outside her place, in all honesty.

“No, I told you, it’s a work thing. Harry and Nick are here too.”

His hands flying he says, “Oh good, it’s a double date. Good. Good. Great.”

“It’s not...”

“I can’t believe you’re on a date.” Because Louis still feels chopped up and part dead inside. He can’t imagine even letting someone see him who hasn’t known him already for ages and here she is, inviting strapping men back round to hers. Letting them meet her friends.

“Louis,” she reaches out to touch him and all he can think about is her touching Ben.

“Sorry for stopping by. I’ll maybe ring you up sometime.” He turns to head back down the stairs, still frighteningly unsure whether he’s going to sick up. But then he remembers why he’s here and Ben fucking existing doesn’t change that. “No. I love you, Eleanor and I think we should give this another chance.”

She says his name again, but he can’t stop. If he stops, it’ll mean he’s failed and he can’t do that for the second time at her flat. He physically cannot allow that to happen and so he just decides to ride this train of flat out insanity that he jumped on once he decided to come down here in the first place.

“Look, you finish your evening. Do whatever it is you’re going to do. I’ll just hang out right here so when you’re done with your date then we can get married.”

“I don’t think so,” she says, like she doesn’t get that it was a joke. Maybe that’s because part of him really meant it. Everything is so incredibly fucked up.

“You said you wanted more. There is no more.” He spreads his arms wide and then gestures at himself. “This is all that there is.”

“This isn’t you. This is the other guy.”

“What other guy?”

“It’s April, they’re almost eliminated. You’re becoming the version of you that doesn’t have to have every day revolve around them. And I know I love that guy, that’s the person I fell in love with last summer, but the season you broke my heart.”

“No,” he argues, even though he knows he did.

“Louis, just too much has happened.”

He’s going to start to cry, he can feel that lump in his throat and that prickly burning sensation in his eyes. “Alright, look, when the whole baby thing happened, alright, I froze. I thought of a million reasons I shouldn’t be a dad. Mostly that my dad wasn’t that much of one. But then I thought of the one reason I should. It would be ours, Ellie. Pieces of us. And I got so excited." His voice cracks but he makes himself go on. "I got a Rovers bodysuit for a player to be named later. I still have it. You know, for whenever.”

“I just got too hurt. I’m sorry. Have a good night.” 

He scrubs his hand through his hair, at least two of those tears he anticipated making their way down his face, but she’s still opening the door, going back inside, and nothing’s changed.

\---

“I flat out fucking cried,” he says, lying facing Perrie in Zayn’s bed, since that was where they were when he came home.

Perrie strokes at his face. “You poor thing.”

“How much crying are we talking,” Zayn asks, his chin hooked over Perrie’s shoulder.

“That doesn’t matter,” Louis and Perrie answer almost in unison.

He rolls over to take a drag on the cigarette in the ashtray on the nightstand. “Just asking.”

The whole room smells like smoke and incense and they probably had sex really recently in the spot he's laying, but he can't be bothered to think too much about it. “I mean, I tried and it didn’t work. That’s okay, right?”

Perrie assures him, “That’s totally okay, babe,” her fingernails somehow comforting on his jaw. “Just a little bump in the road.”

“Maybe it just wasn't enough,” Zayn says, passing the cigarette to Louis, though he declines.

“Babe, what else is he supposed to do?”

“I'm going to sell the tickets,” Louis spits out right as Zayn accidentally ashes onto his arm.

\---

“I think it’s nice we did this, finally,” Daisy says, running her finger down the wine list. “I love the boys...”

“Please, they’re not here, we don’t have to worry about their fragile egos,” Aimee interrupts.

“Alright, you’re right. Do we want to do a bottle of red, white or something in the middle?”

Sophia doesn’t even look up from her phone to add, “I thought maybe we’d each get our own something? I don’t know, I’ve been craving vermouth.”

“Who craves vermouth?” Aimee asks, tentatively ripping apart a piece of bread with her bright green and orange nails. “I’m asking honestly.”

“I haven’t had it in ages. And it’s been such a long day. I don’t know, ugh, Liam won’t stop texting me.”

“I’ll take that then,” Eleanor suggests, reaching for Sophia’s cell. “But yes, maybe our own drinks. I think I could go for something with vodka.”

“And you, Aims? Split a bottle with me?” Daisy pleads. “It’s no fun to just get a glass of something.”

“I’m sticking with mineral water tonight, ladies, sorry to disappoint.”

Eleanor and the other two women focus their attention on Aimee’s face, all three in various degrees of gaping at her with open mouths. “Are you pregnant,” Eleanor means to whisper, but it comes out in a mid volume kind of squawk.

“Can’t a woman just decide not to have a drink now and then?”

“Well, yes, a woman can, but not you, Aimee!” Daisy says. “Are you really?”

“Yes, alright, yes.” Aimee has on her cat that ate the canary grin as they pepper her with questions about when she found out, and when she’s due and how Ian reacted. “He bought an infant set of headphones, which, that’s sweet but absurd, right?”

Eleanor allows herself to say, “They do things like that, don’t they,” because it’s okay to talk about Louis as long as she doesn’t say his name and everyone might not know. Those are the current rules on the matter for getting through the day.

Her phone buzzes on the table, next to Sophia’s, and she hits the button to send the call to voicemail. Unfortunately, it goes off again almost immediately. “I’m sorry, I think it’s a work forward,” she says glancing at the number. “I’ll be right back,” as her friends wave her away from the table without being insulted.

Pressing the green button on her screen, she answers as professionally as she can, “Hello, Eleanor speaking.”

“Eleanor, I know it’s late, but we only just finished going through some paperwork.” It’s her boss and she feels her hands start to shake. “The board will be meeting later this month and we would very much like to nominate you for the position you applied for. Are you still interested?”

“Yes!” she blurts out. “Very much so, thank you, sir.”

“Now, it still needs to be approved officially, but I doubt there will be any problem with that now. Have a good evening. Celebrate.”

“I will, sir. Thank you again, sir. Goodbye.” She ends the call and her first impulse is to call Louis. But she shakes it off and goes back to the table.

“Everything alright?” Daisy asks. “Not an emergency?”

“No, I...I got the promotion,” she answers, not quite believing it.

“Oh, well then forget the vermouth, we need champagne! Champagne and I guess sparkling water for Aimee,” Sophia says, having momentarily lowered her no longer confiscated phone from her ear. “Isn’t that great, Liam? Eleanor got the promotion! Alright, yeah, go, enjoy the match. But don’t expect me to go with you as much as she did. Yep, bye, love you.”

“What did you mean by that?”

“By what?”

“The don’t expect me to go as much as she did thing.”

“Well, fuck, I’ve really put my foot in it,” Sophia says, as their other two friends are pretending to be suddenly really into the list of specials at the front of the menus. “Liam’s buying Louis’ tickets.”

“Louis, my Louis, is selling his Rovers tickets?” Eleanor feels like her heart is never going to beat normally again.

“I didn’t want to tell you because of the whole we’re not going to talk about Louis anymore pact. I’m sorry.”

“He’s really doing that?”

“Yeah, they’re at the stadium right now going over the details.”

“Fuck,” Eleanor says, as realization settles over her that he’s selling his Rovers tickets and he’s doing it for her. “I have to go. Shit, Aims, congratulations, I’ll call you tomorrow, love you, all!” She grabs her purse and swiftly walks towards the door, hoping there’s a cab just idling at the kerb outside.

\---

“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” Eddie says from the row ahead of them. “I can’t tell you how many times you and I have talked about how these seats are everything.”

“Eddie, don’t worry about it,” he says, tapping his fingers on his thigh. “I’ll still come back and visit.”

“Yeah, mate, you promise you’re still going to come to some of these matches with me, right?” Liam asks.

“Course.”

“So why are you selling them?” Eddie asks.

“Look, if I keep these seats, come to every game, all I’ll think about every time I’m here is what I gave up for them.”

Liam awkwardly pats at his knee. “You’re doing the right thing. And I’m not just saying that because I’m getting your tickets.”

\---

In the cab, she goes through the logistics of this whole thing. He never has his mobile on at the games, so she can’t call him. And Liam’s phone is maybe dead after all the messages to Sophia, or Louis’ made him turn his off too, because he’s not answering his mobile now either. She doesn’t have tickets to this game, and she knows how hard they are to get, especially this late in the season. And she’s listened to Louis talk about how great security is on many occasions.

So, basically she’s fucked.

Plus, after paying for the ride, she has only 65 quid in her wallet, which is probably not going to be enough. But she can also pull this top down a little further and put on a really good about to cry face.

“And...and then, my dad told me, if I ever missed him, all I had to do was just come and watch the Rovers play, and it’s his birthday tomorrow, and...oh, only 40 pounds? Oh thank you. You’ve just made my day. My dad would say thank you too, if he was still here, obviously,” is all that it takes after that when she approaches the scalper closest to where she gets out from the cab.

The ticket she gets is of course not in his section, his level or even on the same side of the field. But the person in the seat next to her has a pair of binoculars and then she can see him in his jersey, passing some document back and forth with Liam.

And she doesn’t know what comes over her, because she’s never been this bold or insane, but she’s running down the steps and leaping over the wall, and then she’s there. On the pitch.

It’s mental, but it’s mental that he’d sell the tickets. That he’d do that for her. And she’s running again, as the players and the officials and the stadium realizes she’s down there. But all she’s doing is watching Louis stand up and sprint to the front of his section.

“Don’t sell your tickets!” she yells when she’s halfway across, legs and lungs burning, and she needs to get to a gym more often, it’s embarrassing how many people are probably watching her on Skyy dying right now. “Louis, don’t do it! Don’t sell them!” she repeats when she crosses out of bounds, chest heaving.

“That’s why you ran all the way across the field?” he asks, hanging over the wall, as she sees security approaching her.

“Yes. This is your fall family. This is your grandfather. I can’t let you sell these seats.”

He touches her face and she’s missed this. She’s missed this. “I fell in love with the Rovers when I was a kid because I had nothing else. Now I’m in love with you. I don’t need this. I don’t want this.”

“You love me enough to sell your tickets, I love you enough not to let you.” She grabs for the papers in his hands. “Sorry, Liam. But, Louis, let’s do it. Let’s shoot one past the goalie into the corner.”

“That’s the hottest thing I’ve ever heard.”

She stretches up and he bends down and they can meet in the middle, in some kind of beautiful, poetic metaphor from the universe. But more importantly, it means she can kiss him again, after these days became weeks became months without her wanting it to be that way. She can kiss him until she feels a tug on her wrist.

“Louis, I’m being arrested.”

“Let her go, son,” the officer suggests.

“Never,” Louis says. “I’m never letting her go again.”

\---

“You have no idea how hard it is to find a calendar in May,” he tells her, slapping one down with kittens in watering cans on the dining room table.

“Why couldn’t you just use a calendar we already had?” She sips at her tea while he pushes her braid aside, kisses at the back of her neck.

“Look at the date on this thing! It’s 2015, do you know anyone besides your nan who has a paper calendar any more?”

She laughs. “Did you steal this from your nan?”

“Kittens can be cute. Never mind. Let’s do what we came here to do. So, what are we adding to this.”

Eleanor picks up a pen and writes, _Watch the Rovers win the division_ on the following weekend.

“Good start, but...” he takes the pen from her hand, leaning over her in the chair. “Thought for sure you would have taken care of this first.” He flips the calendar ahead and writes _Our Anniversary_ in its appropriate box in June.

“You probably should have gotten next year’s too. We’re going to need to put in Aimee’s due date.”

“And our housewarming,” he adds

“Housewarming or flatwarming?”

“I think they’re still called housewarmings regardless.”

Biting on the end of the pen, she asks. “What else should we add?”

“Everything you want, just as long as we’re doing it together.”

She thinks about the birthday of that player to be named later, the date she’s going to get to start her new job, whatever their wedding anniversary might be, and can’t fucking wait to plan out all the seasons their own club team’s going to have.

**Author's Note:**

> On Tumblr [here](http://cashewdani.tumblr.com/post/112428789259).


End file.
